The gaffer says Southend will be a "tough nut to crack"...
Speaking after the 2-0 loss at Luton which marked the end of the regular season, GW says that there were encouraging signs despite the defeat.
“It was always going to be a difficult afternoon because we were 6th whatever happened.
“I felt that players who perhaps had a lot more to gain were the right lads to wear the shirts this afternoon. When you make as many changes as we did you can always get that lack of fluency in your play and that lack of organisation at certain moments and I think we saw that in patches.
“As the afternoon wore on, despite the changes that were forced on us we got ourselves back on top of the game so there were some encouraging signs in certain areas, if it was not the result that we wanted to go into the play-offs with.”
Southend’s defeat at Morecambe means they dropped out of the automatic promotion places at the final hurdle and Phil Brown’s team will be our opponents next Sunday in the semi-final first leg.
GW knows what a difficult task overcoming the Shrimpers will be.
“We had a 4-4 aggregate over the two games, they beat us at theirs and we beat them at ours. They are a very good side, make no bones about it.
“I went to watch them at Bury the other week and they got a 1-0 victory that was full of defensive endeavour in the first half and then tactical brilliance in the second half. They really got on top of the game and played it very, very well. Very, very smart.
“They have got some really good quality players; they will be a tough nut to crack.”
The gaffer made eight changes on Saturday, giving some players a chance to impress ahead of the play-offs and GW says he has some thinking to do.
“When you think about how to play, how to win and who are the right players to win any game, there are lots of things to consider.
“Today we went with a formula where we thought we could get the players who possibly would be the most driven to win the game and next weekend we will have to get the players who are right to do the job that is there in front of us.
“So a bit of thinking to do, bit of planning to do before I start working out exactly how we are going to go about those two games.”
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